A provocative reassessment of the relationship between states and environmental politics in Africa

From climate-related risks such as crop failure and famine to longer-term concerns about sustainable urbanization, environmental justice, and biodiversity conservation, African states face a range of environmental issues. As Carl Death demonstrates, the ways in which they are addressing them have important political ramifications, and challenge current understandings of green politics. Death draws on almost a decade of research to reveal how central African environmental politics are to the transformation of African states.

Carl Death is senior lecturer in international political economy at the University of Manchester. He lives in Manchester, UK.

“The Green State in Africa contributes immensely to African studies. Death offers us an alternative theoretical conception of the African state and politics, and effectively links environmentalism to state transformation.”—Maano Ramutsindela, author of Transfrontier Conservation in Africa: At the Confluence of Capital, Politics, and Nature

“Carl Death takes the study of the green state in a refreshing new direction by bringing the very different circumstances of colonial and post-colonial green states in Africa into a critical dialogue with the mostly western-centric scholarship on this topic. Such a debate is long overdue!”—Robyn Eckersley, author of The Green State

“This book is a must read—it clearly shows that the environment is not a secondary concern for African states; it draws together apparently disparate debates on green states and African states for the first time, to produce an engaging and highly original analysis.”—Rosaleen Duffy, author of Nature Crime: How We’re Getting Conservation Wrong

“In The Green States in Africa Carl Death has presented one of the strongest and most convincing arguments for understanding the nature of the state in Africa and beyond, through the environmental politics lens.”—Thembela Kepe, University of Toronto

“The Green State in Africa offers a radical reading of global environmental politics hinged upon the centrality of the African state to ‘green politics and governance.’ This well-crafted book brilliantly presents an innovative, state-centric theorization of environmental politics in Africa, exploring its transformative potential and significance in the struggle for a just, equitable, and environmentally sustainable world.”—Cyril Obi, Social Science Research Council, New York

“This is an original study that contributes much to international relations, state theory, green politics, and the possibilities of thinking much more carefully about sustainable modes of rule in the future both in Africa and elsewhere.”—Simon Dalby, Wilfrid Laurier University

“The Green State in Africa is highly important because it is unique in its overview and discussion of environmental governance in Africa.”—Peter Oosterveer, Wageningen University

“I would highly recommend [this book] to scholars, students, development practitioners, and others interested in the future of the global environment. . . . It is an excellent primer for the perplexed and a source of guidance for the initiated.”—Calestous Juma, Perspectives on Politics

“Death’s study addresses notable gaps in the field of international relations while simultaneously offering a model for Africanists seeking to understand better how their colleagues can, and perhaps should, engage and learn from each other methodologically.”—Marcus Filippello, African Studies Association

Winner of the 2018 Harold and Margaret Sprout Award, given by the Environmental Studies Section of the International Studies Association